I paused for a moment, as I stepped onto the sidewalk of a small two room home. I glared up at the dark gray sky, as a hand of lighting seemed to stretch across the clouds, the cold wind winding strongly around me. I lifted my cool hand to my face, shielding it from my dark brown hair, as I forced myself up the sidewalk to the unwelcoming structure.

        Memories flashed through my eyes as fleeting glimpses of what this place used to be, unveiled themselves as mirages in front of me.

        The once lively flowers and plants that once lined themselves against the sidewalk and house; reduced to brown shrubs. The once new green yard that had been neatly cut was now overcome by masses of dark green, which had spread over it like a virus.

        The sound of my black shoes hitting the cracked pavement beneath, was soon joined as raindrops began to fall, one by one until a wave of water seemed to surge over me. The once small droplets soon completely blackened the earth around me, as if the weather were to react to my emotions.

        Finally I reached the holed screen door in front of me, and forgetting my hesitation I threw it open, my body freezing in place as the old door came into view behind it. Regretfully I knew this door all to well, and I helplessly dwelled in my memories, sweeping my fingers lightly over a splintered gash; a wound that had been carved mercilessly across the doors once smooth frame. I hesitated as memories that had been locked inside of me for years clouded my concentration.

        I had been taken to the foster home at age five, and by then had I already established a sense of independence. I was left there as a result of my fathers uncontrollable drinking and smoking habits, which led him to beat my mom, who had been hospitalized several times. Eventually she couldn’t bare the strain and, one night after locking me in a closet for my safety, she went down stairs to confront him. That was her mistake. I heard the screams, the worst screams that had ever met my ears. The screams filled the basement, and I cried, praying, praying for them to stop, and they did.

The police found me the next morning, and one carried me downstairs, believing I was asleep. He thought my eyes were covered, but I saw it detectives, policeman, all crowded around it, a mangled body, its blood staining the carpet for feet. I watched wide eyed as we passed it, the policeman who carried me in his arms, still didn’t notice that I was watching until I screamed. I saw cameras flashing at the scene, illuminating a face, or what was left of one. Their mouth was wide open as were the eyes, and gashes from a pocket knife, had left it with a distorted profile. The only way that I could tell that it was my mother, was by catching sight of a bracelet wrapped loosely around a three fingered hand that was stretched up towards the ceiling; the muscles locked in place.

        After I recovered from shock, and was interrogated they took me to a foster home, realizing I had no family left. There I made friends with a girl. All the others ignored me, though after all that had happened I never cared. I built a strong bond with her that was quickly ripped away when I was adopted into a broken family at age seven. A few days later I discovered that she had been killed when a drunk driver collided with her car as she had been taken away to her new home. I cried, and soon I hardened myself to the world. Nothing improved from there.

        A few months after my adoption, my new parents began to fight, and scared that history might repeat itself, I ran away.

        I was missing for a week, and strangely I managed to survive, but when I tried to return to my home. I discovered that my parents had divorced, and the court session was only a few months away. Afterward, I was given to my father, who flew to Arizona, making it our new home. I attended school and, excelled in my work. A year past of hard work, and I had successfully skipped a grade; my goal. Everything thing was calm, yet during the eighth year, on a summer night we received a phone call reporting that his ex-wife had been caught in a fire, and had been hospitalized with third degree burns, she didn’t survive the night. Again I cried, but again I couldn’t cry enough to make up for a fraction of the pain I felt that night. I forced myself to attend school the very next day, and those lifeless, silent days continued for nearly a week, until my father finally resorted to drinking. I would lock myself up in my room on those cold nights when he was moved to anger by the habit.

        Three years past, and at eleven I was already well into middle school. I was left out by the other kids, but not being confronted only gave me more time to study. I would come home, and night by night, I would sit in the house alone, until once I was kidnapped by a stranger who planned to hold me for ransom.

 He kept me in a building for nearly a month, but no one came. In that time though, strangely I formed a bond with him, and realized that he needed the money for his wife, who had been hospitalized. He had been fired from his job, and had resorted to what on no other occasion he would have done. Soon I was helping him steal, and little did my nerves bother me when my hand slid into a pocket of a complete stranger. This passed for three years, and by then I was out of middle school, and was graduating high school. My so called “guardian” helped me with finances and a year later I was off to college. The college paid for much of it because of my grades. Three more years past, and my guardian passed away, of a strange illness not long after his hospitalized wife. With this I left college, and raised the money to return to this God forsaken little town. The mark on my old house; a scar given to it by the same knife that killed my mother this was my home, and where my life’s biggest ordeal…began.